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United States Patent | 6,078,896 |
Kaehler ,   et al. | June 20, 2000 |
A fuel dispenser includes fuel delivery components located in a service station, a card reader for reading customer credit or debit cards, a customer data input mechanism, and a video infeed line for infeeding a video signal including advertising of a product available for sale at the service station and data about the advertisement in a closed-captioning portion of the video signal. The dispenser also includes a video display screen arranged to receive the video signal and display the advertisement as a visible video program, a memory of information about products that may be advertised, and a data controller adapted to control data for the card reader and capable of reading data from the closed-captioning portion of the video program for use in a manner independent of affecting the way the visible video program is displayed. The data may, for example be used to count the number of times a particular video program is shown; trigger a product price display on the video display screen from the memory when an advertisement of a selected product is being displayed, or indicate data input options to enable the customer to purchase the advertised product.
Inventors: | Kaehler; David L. (Greensboro, NC); Long; Joseph D. (Greensboro, NC) |
Assignee: | Marconi Commerce Systems Inc. (Greensboro, NC) |
Appl. No.: | 964870 |
Filed: | November 5, 1997 |
Current U.S. Class: | 705/14; 221/1; 221/8; 221/9; 222/1; 222/52; 235/381; 235/383 |
Intern'l Class: | G06F 017/60 |
Field of Search: | 705/14,413 348/8,9,634,510,460,159 386/106,61,463,95 235/381,383 221/1,8,9 222/1,52 |
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